Operation Pallial: Man and woman held over care home abuse

The probe is being led by Keith Bristow, director general of the National Crime Agency

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Detectives investigating historic sex abuse at children’s homes in North Wales have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of indecent assault.

Officers attached to Operation Pallial, the investigation being run by the National Crime Agency, arrested the pair from one address in Seaford, East Sussex.

The offences are alleged to have taken place on a boy between 1975 and 1976 when he was aged between 11 and 12.

The 63-year-old man and 60-year-old woman have been taken to a police station in Sussex, where they will be interviewed by officers from Operation Pallial.

Operation Pallial is led by Keith Bristow, director general of the National Crime Agency, into recent allegations of historical abuse in the care system in North Wales.

Today’s arrests are the sixth and seventh in the inquiry, and one person has been charged.

John Allen, 72, is charged with 22 offences of indecent assault, nine offences of buggery and one of inciting gross indecency with a child.

A former children's homes boss will deny 32 sex charges brought against him by detectives probing allegations of historical child abuse in North Wales, a judge heard. John Ernest Allen, 72, of Foxglove Avenue, Needham Market, Ipswich, appeared before Caernarfon crown court on Thursday. He was the head and founder of the Bryn Alyn Community which at one time ran a number of children's homes in North Wales. The charges include 22 indecent assaults. They are alleged to have taken place between 1968 and 1989 and involve 15 complainants aged between seven and 15. Prosecutor Karen Mullin told Judge Merfyn Hughes QC during a ten-minute hearing: "Police are doing everything they can to progress the investigation." The pensioner's barrister John Gibson said: "Mr Allen denies these allegations."

The alleged offences span around 20 years, from 1968 to 1989, and involve 14 boys and one girl, aged between seven and 15 at the time.

Allen is due to appear at Caernarfon Crown Court on October 28.

Detectives from Operation Pallial, which was launched in November, are looking into 140 allegations relating to 18 care homes between 1963 and 1992.

A report published in April, which outlined phase one of the inquiry, revealed that the alleged victims were aged between seven and 19.

The report said 84 people - 75 male and nine female - had been named by complainants.

Of these, 16 were named by more than one alleged victim and 10 could now be dead.

The National Crime Agency was selected at the request of North Wales Police to ensure the inquiry’s independence.

It was set up to re-examine claims of sex crimes and to look again at the original police investigations into abuse at care homes in North Wales.

In 2000, the Waterhouse Inquiry was established to study claims linked to homes in the former council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd since 1974.

Following Waterhouse, eight people were prosecuted, seven of whom were convicted.

In July, a damning report which revealed “extensive” child abuse in North Wales care homes was finally published - 17 years after it claimed police officers and other professionals could have been identified as potential “perpetrators of assaults”.

The Jillings Report, which focused on allegations of abuse in the council care system during the 1970s and 1980s, was compiled in 1996 but its publication was blocked by the former Clwyd County Council because insurers feared compensation claims.

A heavily redacted version of the report has been published online in the wake of the fresh investigations.

The report is highly critical of North Wales Police’s role in investigating allegations involving its own officers and also claims other agencies, including the local authority, constrained its investigation by providing ”limited information” and, in some cases, refusing to meet the panel.